Two developments in one week seem to show that momentum is gaining to consign the HR profession to Jurassic Park. First a PWC report said HR’s reputation is ‘at a low ebb’ and then new president of the PPMA, the local authority HR group, Stephen Moir, opened the PPMA annual conference with a wake-up call for HR people who were out-dated, incompetent whingers . The conference title this year is ‘Evolution or Extinction’.
In recent months it has seemed like everybody wants to join the queue to stick the boot into HR, notably Luke Johnson in the Financial Times who attacked HR as a burden on productive workers. However, the message in most of these diatribes is that HR itself is seen as more valuable than ever. For example, the PWC report points out that board directors are finally waking up to HR’s importance in delivering competitive advantage. So these attacks are not on HR practices themselves but on the profession of specialists that delivers them. That would be you, then.
Am I the only one who thinks it is time to stand up for good HR? I don’t want to come over all Winston Churchill and Dunkirk, but there are a lot of high-achieving HR managers and directors out there doing a damn good job and we see the evidence of it week in, week out in Personnel Today. There are lousy HR people but there are lousy managers in finance, IT and marketing too.
Recent knockers are using HR jitters to support a sales story for their own HR services. As for Stephen Moirs, his argument seems to contradict itself. He attacks HR ‘navel gazing’ but at the same time he asks the profession to redefine its role.
Who should take the rap for all this scape-goating of HR? As the CIPD’s leader, Geoff Armstrong stands down after 16 years it is fair to that it doesn’t look good that there is a PR crisis over HR’s reputation.
Are we at a crossroads in the evolution of HR from backroom admin function to business partner or is this the beginning of the end for HR? I think the latter because the best HR practitioners have the DNA to survive in a changing environment.
But if you’re one of those hiding behind administrative responsibilities or the risk management role of doling out employment law advice, you need to start focusing on the parts of HR that empower employees to add value to the bottom line. Either that, or you will soon be forming a new layer in the fossil record.
